Grow Portulacaria afra like this and it will grow fast and thrive, and after ten years it will be lush, full of branches and beautiful.

Portulacaria afra is one of the potted plants everyone loves to grow. Its name sounds especially lovely, and it is also called the purslane tree or green jade tree. Its leaves are fleshy and evergreen all year round, its form is upright, and it grows fast. It can be grown as a bonsai, and one pot at home looks quite beautiful.If you want Portulacaria afra to thrive and live long, the growing tips are as follows:

1. Propagation, you do not need to spend money to grow Portulacaria afra; just stick the pruned branches into soil and they will take root.

The specific method: in the growth season in spring and autumn, choose healthy, fairly plump branches about ten cm long, leave a small number of leaves, and let them dry for a day.

Then insert them into sandy soil, or leaf mold plus vermiculite, keep them moist, and place them in half shade.

After they grow roots, gradually let them receive sunlight. After two months they can be potted up, using leaf mold plus coarse sand, or peat soil plus coarse sand mixed together for planting.

2. Watering, Portulacaria afra originates from South Africa, so it suits a fairly warm, dry, well-lit environment, and it is especially drought tolerant, but it must not sit in water. Water again when the potting soil is dry, and water thoroughly when you do. If you water too much, it will cause root rot.

3. Sunlight,Normally it must not be placed in too shady a spot, because then its leaves will lose their gloss and it will easily become leggy with rather thin leaves, so it needs to stay in sufficient sunlight often.

Put it appropriately on a terrace or outdoors, so the leaves grow thick and green and the branches and leaves are lush. In summer, do not put it under blazing sun, and be sure to place it somewhere ventilated.

4. Fertilizing,During the growth period, you can water once a month with decomposed organic fertilizer water, and it will sprout more branches and leaves.

5. In winter, keep it indoors for warmth, in a place with sunlight and no cold wind, stop fertilizing, reduce watering, and as long as the temperature does not drop below 5°C, it can pass the winter smoothly. Every two or three years you can repot it, adding some fertile, loose sandy soil, keeping two-thirds of the original soil around the roots, and replanting.

6. Pruning, it is highly malleable. If you think it is growing especially vigorously, you can also prune it into a shape you like, for example the common cascade style, forest style, and slanted trunk style, and so on, with all kinds of shapes and postures, very beautiful and impressive.

In spring you can apply a small amount of fertilizer, increase light, and water normally, and it will grow especially luxuriantly! If you grow Portulacaria afra in this way, some flower lovers have grown it for more than ten or twenty years, and it still grows very healthily and sturdy.